Impact of Cell Phone Towers on condominum price

It should increase the value a bit, as it gives the condo association some income.

Tricky question. Potential decrease in market value of top floor units. Perception is this is a health risk.

I've never seen an average cell tower on a typical unit have any discernible impact on price. Perhaps an especially massive setup visible from the street or a premium penthouse where a billionaire buyer says, "not with that cell thing there," but most people wince, say they don't like it, and then buy the place anyway.

I don't know how big a problem this is, but they just installed a cel phone tower on the roof of a friend's mid-rise building. He now has problems with his FM radio reception due to the new interference. FWIW.

cell towers are more typical on rental buildings.

We have a cell phone tower on my condo, and we also have a common roof deck. The antennas are not even visible from the roof deck, much less the street. They are on top of the elevator bulkhead. There are visible structural supports and fencing.

With cell antenna and other income, our common charges are about $0.20 sq. ft.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Can I also ask what building are being paid by the carriers to place an antenna on the roof? (we're being offered something on the order of ~$30k/annually, with percentage increases over time.)

what your building being offered is a good rate. the issue that i've found is that some people will refuse to live within 3-5 floors of the antennas and others who will refuse to be in the same building.

When I was on a condo board, we were offered an amount similar to ~$30K/pa, but rejected it because the roof already had leakage problems and we didn't want anyone walking/working on the rooftop unnecessarily.

The rates are pretty uniform, and what you were quoted is consistent. I asked around a lot, including a colleague who did location scouting for cell sites in Boston. I know some people do have the reaction ab mentions, though it is hard to understand that position when the antenna is just going to go on the building next door if not on yours, which may be even closer to you and more of an eyesore.

Yes, it's a little late to start worrying about evil cell-antenna waves or whatever they are.

The six-story co-op kitty-corner from me has four of them, pointing up and down both streets. They're pretty small, maybe 1'x4' each. That building has only 30 apartments, so the ~$30K is a nice chunk of change per year.

i personally wouldn't buy in a building with a tower for health concerns but i can't support with hard science.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_1_3X_Cellular_Phone_Towers.asp

NWT, nice article. Maybe we should add that to our condo board minutes.

Among the interesting tidbids from the article: "The power density behind an antenna is hundreds to thousands of times lower than in front." Again, be careful what you ask for. The antenna on your neighbor's roof pointing at your building and paying $30,000 rent to the neighbors may be the worse of all worlds. Take a look around. It is doubtful there is not already one on at least one neighbor's roof.

agree with orpehus. the current owners on the top floor will be calling their lawyer soon.

A slightly different issue: how about if the cell phone tower is on the building next door and that building is lower than yours? It certainly has an impact on any units with a direct line of sight of it!

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David Goldsmith
DG Neary Realty Ltd.

http://antennasearch.com - if you're curious to see all the towers or antennas in your neighborhood.